Things
I like things, especially my own things. My things are important to me, and it disturbs me when they are damaged, or lost, or worn out with age and use, or somehow diminished, or when I am deprived of them, or my access to them is retarded. I am completely aware that nothing lasts forever, that I can’t take anything with me when I die, and that it is both wrong and a mistake to over-value material things - to value them above people and relationships, for example. So, I am not a materialist. I mean, I do not think that reality is nothing but physical stuff. In fact, I believe that materialism, the philosophical assumption that reality is nothing but physical stuff, is more a prejudice rather than a fact. And I absolutely believe that a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.
I think it is a freaking miracle that anything even exists at all.
But here’s the thing. I feel that we have an existential connection to the physical things in our lives. I mean an ontological relationship that is real, not imaginary, that derives from their effect on us and our effect on them in meaningful association through experience, and that not only are we enriched by our close association, but our close association augments reality.
And why is that, by God? It is because I think it is a freaking miracle that anything even exists at all (as opposed to not existing at all). Existence itself is a miracle. So the fact that anything really does exist ought to be taken reverently, and things themselves ought to be treated almost as sacred objects.
But I could be wrong.